Why Is NASA Hiding James Hansen’s Ethics Records?
In this “Sunshine Week” — amid revelations that the vow of transparency was not, as George Stephanopoulos famously said about Bill Clinton’s truthiness, one of the campaign promises Barack Obama intended to keep — I have just filed an administrative appeal with NASA challenging its thoroughly puzzling refusal to release ethics-related records for its high-profile global warming activist/advocate, the astronomer Dr. James Hansen.
This request and appeal are on behalf of the American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center, for which I am pursuing a transparency project. Other efforts include seeking the same records from the University of Virginia, under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is seeking through a taxpayer protection, anti-fraud statute.
On that front, we have been promised that a rolling production of documents will begin in mere days (which does not mean that we won’t be forced to litigate over claimed exemptions).
NASA rejected our request for records relating to compliance with applicable ethics laws, particularly Hansen’s office, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Hansen is NASA’s highest-profile, most media-present employee and also very entrepreneurial.
Specifically, is he filing applications seeking waivers for outside employment for all of his paying activities like speeches, books (emails obtained already indicated NASA staff worked on this), and other support?
The reasons I ask are not limited to the public record indicating that this file — if it exists — must be quite robust. I ask because I learned as part of another Freedom of Information Act effort, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (now in litigation with a reluctant and secretive NASA), about years of non-compliance by Hansen’s protege Gavin Schmidt.
Schmidt has been running a third-party activist website almost since the moment Hansen brought him on board. The site was originally established to assail author Michael Crichton and defend the risible “Hockey Stick” graph showing stable global temperatures until the past 150 years. He did this using taxpayer resources, on taxpayer time. NASA agreed with this when I won my administrative appeal seeking Schmidt’s “RealClimate.org” records on NASA’s server.
But now, in a Washington, D.C., federal court, NASA is arguing that whenever Schmidt does this, at whatever time of day and in whatever office he sits, he’s clearly punching out from his job at NASA, so his daytime moonlighting is none of your business.
We’ll see if that floats. But in the meantime, we learned something about GISS, of which Hansen is currently director: GISS was not requiring Schmidt to comply with ethics rules that direct employees to obtain waivers for such outside employment. He scrambled to do so, and NASA provided us those very records.
That got me thinking: Is it unreasonable to believe the same man allowing this as director is also skirting the law’s requirements? NASA doesn’t want me (or you) to know. It says that to release these records would “clearly be an unwarranted violation” of Hansen’s privacy interests.
That’s untrue, given applicable FOIA precedent, as we explain in our appeal.
But these are the same records NASA provided me regarding Schmidt, which confirmed GISS’s deviation from the law in the first place. Apparently, Mr. Hansen is special. We know this from the way the media has treated him. The press repeated that any president named “George Bush” muzzled Hansen, while being entirely incurious about the possible implications of his various extracurricular activity.
What is even more puzzling is that NASA did not confirm or deny the existence of the records. It spoke generally about how any such records would contain information such as how much of his time Hansen spends on outside projects and for how much money. At least it sees what we’re getting at. And it said NASA would never dream of releasing such information — except when it would, I suppose.
This treatment represents something of a desperate strategy for NASA, indicating that either it knows there is something amiss or, tantalizingly hinted at by the oblique language, it is planning to treat Hansen’s ethics file with a “Glomar” reply.
That gambit was pioneered by the National Security Agency to hide information about a secret plan using Howard Hughes’ Glomar Explorer to raise a sunken Soviet submarine, by which they refuse to either confirm or deny that requested records exist. (See, e.g., here) The request then goes before a judge for a private look at the files.
Will NASA really try to place Hansen’s applications for waivers on a par with national security records? The public record, as we detail, indicates that the files exist — that is, if NASA is following the law, which as we’ve already seen in Mr. Schmidt’s case, it hasn’t always.
Of course, ultimately the records will be released, just as NASA released Schmidt’s, sans the drama and selective guardian of privacy bunting. What we know already confirms there had better be a lot there, if NASA has been keeping up with its statutory obligations. If not, then climate activist, friend of the rich and famous (and left-wing), globe-trotting expert witness in support of civil disobedience and nanny statism James Hansen actually hasn’t been filing the required applications for waivers for outside employment.
Stay tuned. NASA has 20 working days to remove — or deepen — the mystery.
Records? We ain’t got no records. We don’t need no records. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ records.
Why would anyone be surprised? This is a lawless administration as no administration before it has ever been.
There of course have been lawbreakers in government before but now it is pervasive. Obama flouting the Constitution in exceeding his authority and trampling the separation of powers. The congress for keeping felons in office and whitewashing internal investigations. The Department of Justice refusing to protect the American people equally. Maybe worst of the lot is NASA. Those who worked there in the 60s must cringe every time they hear the name of NASA now.
Mr. Horner.
Perhaps President Bush would be willing to expand on the supposed muzzling of Jim Hansen storyline. Probably a well written email would shed light on why a President or one of his departments would muzzle one of it’s employees without ever following up on that employee’s ethics and disclosure records.
Sort of makes the whole Bush muzzles global warming story look like a media invention.
What are you babbling about, boy? Is this the screed that the psychopath Hansen that was doing 15-20 media interviews weekly was ranting about?
Are you a candidate for the same straight-jacket/rubber room ward as Hansen?
My point exactly. Hansen was never muzzled, but the media narrative was that President Bush, along with the Republican party, was/is anti-science.
So they pushed that story with zero evidence, hoping that without any real media reporting the truth, they could just bluff their way through without being called on it.
Now a verifiable breach of ethic rules for Hansen opens the door, providing an opportunity for President Bush to correct the record. He might be persuaded to expand on the topic.
Personally I think GW was busy with about a thousand other higher priorities during his time in office to even entertain the idea of censoring Hansen, but it would be nice to get that straight from the horse’s mouth.
I will bet you a case of Sam Adams that if NASA releases the records and they do, indeed, show that Hansen was not in compliance, there will be no penalty for Hansen. Further, I will double the bet that DOJ won’t even bother to look at the case. Of course, Hansen is not Scooter Libby.
This needs to be coordinated with Congress in current and future funding. Hansen is NASA’s equivalent of CPB’s Big Bird. He can stand on his own two feet and on his own merits getting off the taxpayer dime.
While they are at it they can also defund the Muslim outreach program.
A private employee would be fired for using his company office and company desk and company computer to work on outside business unless the company gave prior written approval (e.g., good will such as charities, Rotary, Lions, etc.).
“Obviously having punched in and out” while working on outside interests during NASA (MY MONEY!!!!) time is BS. He’s using MY lights, MY capital assets and wasting MY time.
When is anyone going to get serious and file criminal suits on these AHs, not just FOIA bullets of embarrassment fired to a press that won’t print them.
PS: I worked at Goddard in the 60s and Hansen’s actions would have been cause for dismissal then.
Nice to see the use of bureaucratic tools against corrupt bureaucrats.
Since Hansen has been at this since the mid-1980′s, several administrations have been aiding and abetting the corruption of science. Senator Inhofe’s website has information about his attempts to shine a light on this, but he has been rebuffed at every step. Bush I and II, Clinton, and Obama supported this fraud, paid for by the taxpayers, since it was funded in every budget for years.
papertiger, are you insinuating GWB didn’t muzzle Hansen? He must have, because I distinctly remember seeing Hansen on several news and talk shows at the time, telling everyone about global warming and how Bush wasn’t allowing him to tell anyone about global warming.
Poor guy. So thoroughly muzzled he was forced to appear on every major news channel to tell us about it.
Playing the man and not the ball in such a manner goes beyond conduct unbecoming a Republican.
It calls Horner’s judgment into question in that reasonable observers may ask why someone with a scientific case would stoop to harassing scientists ?
Fortunately Horner isn’t harassing scientists, only Jimmy
HoffaHansen.Russell, if “scientists” have been breaking the law why is it harassment to ask that they follow it?
No need to even go into the fact that Democrats have done a very good job of establishing the status quo, which is that the Full Court Press is the only way to go. Why should one side be required to fight with one hand tied behind their back when the other never does?
NASA has been a fat cash cow for many. Hansen is probably just one of many grifters at NASA who have been milking taxpayers for years. So one shouldn’t expect any solutions from NASA, especially since it has gone Jihadist.
Why Is NASA Hiding James Hansen’s Ethics Records? Its not rocket science, please allow me to answer that, it’s a government agency and they have something to hide.